


De Onrust van mijn Verlangen walgt van mij

by pauliemeatballs



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauliemeatballs/pseuds/pauliemeatballs
Summary: Short work about Siebren realizing he's in love with Reinhardt, & visiting Zen for therapy reasons bc he doesn't know how to handle it.
Relationships: Sigma | Siebren de Kuiper/Reinhardt Wilhelm
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	De Onrust van mijn Verlangen walgt van mij

**Author's Note:**

> -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjfmP7h3gBw  
> -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bH4s1jFbRM&t=1m37s  
> -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH_D7z0NwQM

“Oh. Hello, Siebren.”

“I’m sorry. I know we don’t have to meet again until next week.”

“There’s no need to apologize. You can come to me whenever.”

Siebren gave a small, sheepish smile, folding his arms stiffly and temporarily regretting his choice of a heavy black sweatshirt for the day. The sun was hot and high, the air conditioners blaring away inside, but it seemed the more comfortable option all the same, as strange as it was. Siebren usually donned slim fitting exercise wear, but the armor-like weight of the sweatshirt felt safer, like he couldn’t entirely be seen while wearing it, though it worked just as well to quell his true insecurities as his comforters did when locked away in his room, immobilized by depression and inky black darkness. The sun reflected off of Zenyatta’s head, casting a healthy gleam of freshly polished and impeccably crafted metal, their pants and belt echoing the color palette of the peaceful summer climate. They floated just so near a cliff that led off the watchpoint and into the ocean, blue-green and rippling with tranquil monotony. Siebren could see the horizon, and noted how Zenyatta’s image seemed artistically bisected between the two, though the sentiment behind it further reminded him of his present turmoil. He approached them, the sand and small rocks barely registering against the soles of his feet.

“Tell me what troubles you,” Zenyatta offered, still looking directly into the sun. At least Siebren assumed they were. He couldn’t tell which openings on their front cranial plate allowed them to see. Could they see? Or did they navigate solely through feeling? The thought was curtly cast aside, Siebren fully aware of how he was just distracting himself to prolong the inevitable.

The two remained silent for some time, Zenyatta patiently expectant and Siebren frozen by how daunting it would be to proclaim the truth. _To proclaim, like a prayer_ , he thought to himself. He’d woken up just a few hours before, feeling partially untethered from his body in a feverish haze that made everything appear to be in slow motion. A painful twist in his heart followed, preceding dizziness and shortness of breath, and yet it was not the kind of arresting physical spell that robbed him of his autonomy. No. His thought process was still clear, his anxiety spearing up through his skin as if he’d been impaled on a bed of icicles, though the pain itself was dull and pierced deeply enough that it reminded him of the chewed flesh of his inner cheek, or the bloody ruts between his teeth from over-flossing. Pain that almost seemed pleasurable, because it was so familiar.

_(reinhardt)_

Embarrassment seized him, but he felt it yanked from his heart instead of his stomach, like stubborn roots. His cheeks felt bright with heat, and his mouth watered. Realization came to him far too fast, the impact far too violent, and his reaction far less shameful than his acidic logic expected of him. He apologized to the air, and doubled over with a shaky breath.

_(i think i love you)_

Tears flowed. The ball of fire in his body felt sweet and thawing, but carried the fearsome promise of infinite expansion. Fire could only follow in it's true nature. It sparked to life and burned brighter and brighter and taller and taller and could keep growing with nothing in the universe being able to stop it. It would burgeon within him until it cooked him from the inside and melted his skin from his bones and jellified his eyes in their sockets and would continue to flourish long after he became a pile of embers. Another shaky breath. Siebren held his hands to his cheeks as if to tame the heat within them, but also in a moment of disbelief, and he allowed himself to admit it. 

_I love Reinhardt_ , he thought.

His face immediately crumpled. Siebren did not expect to feel such an agonizing crush on another person this late in his life. Crushes like this he assumed were reserved for the unsure era of adolescence, not for the time in one’s life where everything was known regardless of will, and the time to continue learning had dwindled to insignificance in the shadow of age. The pain of this love was meant for someone who had never known prior that they wanted to possess and be possessed by someone, to be pried open by gentle hands and unraveled. He felt it stab deeper when realizing the same could technically be considered for him. He stood in front of his window, staring into the sun, rehearsing “I love you’s” and “I’m in love with you’s” as if he truly meant to confess it that day. But he didn’t. He crumpled down to the floor, hands folded in an unknowable prayer, weeping silently.

Back in the present, he sighed deeply.

“I have a lot of feelings that I’m not sure how to deal with.” He immediately cursed himself for sounding so shallow.

“You feel full, not empty, so these are feelings of passion. I think they’re good to have, even if they’re born in rage. Much better to be wrathful than empty,” Zenyatta mused. Siebren nodded slightly. He was full, that much was certain. It clawed up his throat in silky ribbons of heat instead of acrid bile. 

“It’s been quite some time since...I’ve been able to say I am part of a family.”

“Mm.”

“And it was only a small part of my life in, well, in the grand scheme of things, but my time alone was...enough to convince me it was all I’d ever known, and ever will know.”

Zenyatta remained silent.

“I do feel passionate.” Siebren paused, still not knowing how to formally regard Zenyatta. “I have much passion inside of me.”

“And you fear it, because you have had it conditioned out of you.”

“Yes.”

Zenyatta paused as well, forming a thought.

“Do you ever wonder how I am able to float?”

Siebren thought it an odd question, especially since it was directed towards him of all people. “Not particularly. I assumed certain omnics had the technology inside to ignore their own gravity.”

“You would assume correctly,” they responded. “I am much like you, in that respect. I do not obey gravity, and yet I am still anchored to the Earth.”

Siebren cast his eyes down, attentively listening to Zenyatta’s words.

“I realized some time during my short life that the soul is not restricted to human flesh. A soul is a sign of one’s capacity to learn, and to therefore channel that knowledge into acts of passion. Souls do not strictly belong to good or bad people, but they are one and the same in that they carry our feelings. An activist will feel rage towards the forces that oppress their brethren. An artist will feel harmony while completing a project exactly the way they want to. An athlete will feel both fatigue and anticipation before reaching another milestone. Passion allows us motivation, while it also allows us bias. I have only cited whom I deem to be good people, for example. None of us are free.

I am a machine, and I am able to have a soul because I think and feel and care. Because I am not human, I can perform superhuman feats. Like my ability to float. My technology allows me this, because it is how I was made. I was not made to love, and yet I have learned to do so.”

Siebren smiled.

“There is no limit to how much we can learn from one another, Siebren. No limit to how our souls can expand and grow.”

“Are you able to read my mind?”

Zenyatta chuckled. Siebren also made a mental note of how strange that seemed. 

“I cannot. Extrasensory perception doesn’t exist.”

Siebren picked up on the wry humor behind the answer, and they both laughed brightly.

“But I do know people. Because I have learned to read them. I grew from analysis to empathy. Cold to warm.”

Silence.

“You are never too old to stop growing. And you are never too young to start learning.”

Siebren’s sinuses began to prickle, and he wondered if Zenyatta’s acute perception noticed the shift in his demeanor.

“I say this because this is what you’re currently wrestling with. You’re not allowing yourself to feel passion, because you have unlearned it. In the same process, you have also unlearned yourself.”

He sniffled, taking a deep breath before fixing his gaze towards the sun, as if the resulting blindness would act as another mask to hide behind while admitting his feelings.

“...Reinhardt is my best friend. I like to think I’m his, as well. Is that selfish of me?”

“Not at all. That is passion.”

“Right. He’s taken...such good care of me. He cares so much, and I don’t know why.”

“Reinhardt is a passionate person. Empathic and jovial. He loves life, and he loves the living.”

_(love)_

“He respects and cares for you because you lived.”

_(does he love me too?)_

“I...care for him very much, too. So much that it feels like it's bursting from me sometimes. I don’t know how to repay him, or express my gratitude.”

“Reinhardt is the kind of person who is good for goodness’s sake. A reward is the last thing on his mind.”

“Not a reward, but…it’s just that I don’t know how to reciprocate.” Siebren’s voice wobbled in frustration. “What do I _do_? How do I let him know how much I appreciate him? He's so kind and considerate and I--” He clasped his hands, bowing into them and swallowing hard to open his swollen throat.

“The key is ‘want’.”

Something suddenly snapped inside of Siebren.

“ _Yes_. I _want_ . But do I _need_? Is what I want what Reinhardt needs?”

A long pause as Siebren's breathing became more frantic. For whatever reason, his mind seemed hyper-tuned into the details on the backs of his hands. Protruding bones and veins and crepe-like skin and the way his knuckles stood out roundly on his fingers like little tumors.

“...What do you want, Siebren?”

He rose to his feet like a rocket, his vocal cords blazing, but his face still in his hands, his palms digging into his eyes. 

“God... _God_ \--I WANT _HIM_ ! I WANT HIM AND I CAN’T STAND IT. I’M SELFISH AND...AND I’M- I’M _AMOROUS_ AND...I WANT! I WANT, I WANT, I WANT BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO GIVE!”

“Love cannot be bartered, Siebren.”

“ _I WANT TO BE LOVED!_ ” he screamed, a ragged sob immediately following. “ _I WANT TO BE LOVED!! I WANT HIM TO LOVE_ **_ME_ ** _!! I WANT TO BE TOUCHED, I WANT--I WANT TO BE HELD, I WANT TO BE DANCED WITH, I WANT TO BE LOOKED AT, I WANT TO BE S-SWEPT OF MY FEET AND I DON’T--GOD--AND I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO EARN IT BECAUSE..BECAUSE I’M SELFISH AND...AND I DON’T CARE! AND I…”_

Siebren exhaled harshly, his palms against his temples, a gravelly groan tearing itself from his throat. He suddenly felt the physical and mental weight of his age wrap itself around him from behind; an amorphous beast of molten lead and decaying flesh.

“I want to...I want him to wake up next to me and look at me like I’m--” He could not bring himself to say beautiful. The selfish are not beautiful.

“I want him to want me. When I’m not around, I want him to miss me. When he needs, I want him to have me. When he’s sad, I want him to hold me. When he’s happy, I want him to k--I want him to kiss me. I want him to kiss me. I want to be kissed. I want--I want him to--” Siebren’s speech became slurred and more hysterical the hotter his insides burned, strangling him as he choked out the truth.

“I want him to love me, too.”

He paused before finally collapsing back down onto the ground, sobbing quietly, his forehead in his hands. He cursed himself again. Why did he think this would be cathartic? Why did he do this? Siebren thought of Zenyatta’s skeletal body, how it allowed him smooth mobility, and the ability to release the heat of his processors. Such a privilege was not granted to humans. Humans could only writhe in the sun, writhe in their shame, dehydrated and displaced and dying like a fish out of water. The more he thought of how much he loved Reinhardt, the more everything hurt inside. His throat burned and throbbed as if he'd swallowed the beast, feeling its hot, heavy hands pushing outward from within like a fetus. He felt uglier the more he grimaced, and profoundly stupid at the way he'd frantically banged his fingertips against his chest while speaking.

As if cued by an invisible stagehand, Siebren felt Zenyatta’s cool, hard hand around his head, the steel as soft and loving as the skin from any human’s. 

“You are not bound by any law. The sky and the earth are yours. In physical terms, you are free. But we can never be _mentally_ free. To lose your ability to love is to lose your soul.

You and I, Siebren, we exceed who we are. How we were born. But we cannot escape the anchor. This is the one constant.”

Siebren blinked slowly. It eventually became a little bit easier to swallow.

“We are, all of us, anchored by passion. Without it, there is no life. You say he takes care of you. While you were comatose, he fed you and washed you and spoke to you. When you woke, he spent every day from then on in your company. A machine cannot hope, or guess, or theorize, and yet I believe he loves you too.”

Siebren’s grimace deepened, his tears still spilled over, but the weight on his chest lightened all the same. Words came easier to him.

“I want him to love me romantically. Don’t tell me he won’t. Don’t ask me what I’ll do if he doesn’t.”

“I won’t.” Zenyatta fell slowly onto the ground, sitting close enough that their heads could touch.

“This is our right, Siebren. You are entitled to desire, to dream, to expect, to demand. You are entitled to your anger and your scorn. The only thing that is left to drive our passion is to be brave.”

Siebren sniffed one last time, and wiped his eyes with his knuckles. He found he’d exhausted himself of words, and could only place his hands over his heart as if it were in danger of slipping out through his ribs. 

“...I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize, Siebren. I am your friend.” Zenyatta moved their hand to Siebren’s neck, completing the gap between their foreheads. 

“...I want him to want me. To need me. Am I wishing this misery on him? Does this make me a bad person?” Siebren asked quietly, as if he’d blasphemed.

“From what you’ve shared with me, you haven’t wished anything ill on him, nor have you expressed the need to overpower. Only indulge. Indulging in love, and listening to your heart-- these things are never a sin. You simply want to connect, to prove you exist, to be. Don’t we all?”

Siebren felt the blank plateau of emotion that often followed a tearful outburst roll down and out like a long rug. He found he could only stare down listlessly, silently arrested by mortification. The worst, however, was over. He’d bled himself dry and Zenyatta soaked it up. Somehow, it felt purifying. Zenyatta's head had been heated by the sun's rays, and the way it prickled through his skin felt soothing. It also made it somewhat easier to fathom the enormity of his love, shimmering grandly and spurting forth fountains of light inside of him like the sun. His sun.

“You’re okay, Siebren.”

_I’m okay_ , he thought.


End file.
